I’ll be fierce, not silent. I’m enough.

I meet up with two of my closest friends to create our vision boards for 2025 out of magazine cutouts. This is the first time we’re doing it, the first time I’m trying to make it real. We clean the clutter off the table, and I take a last sip of my champagne. I don’t resort to alcohol to fuel how I think, but a subtle gulp here and there does relax my nerves a bit, enough to let me freely think.

I rifle through the pages as I think of my theme for the year ahead. What do I want to be? Better yet, who am I now, and where do I see this version of me heading for the next 12 months? I stop at a page and see a quote blocked between the editorial staff’s names. I don’t recall the exact words, but the first three words lure me in: I’ll be fierce. I cut it and set it aside. Onto the next magazine, I skim through the pages again and stop. I see the words ‘not silent’, cut it, and set it aside.

I combined these two cutouts on top of the other so that it reads, ‘I’ll be fierce, not silent.’ That’s it, I think. That’s who I am and where I’m heading. Around these words, I paste a woman dancing, an astronaut on a high jump, herbs like oregano and basil spilling from their soils, flowers in spring, performers beaming before the curtains draw, two friends in Hawaiian shirts holding their alcoholic drinks while on a morning stroll, pieces of jewelry, two raised palms beside a large raw amethyst rock, and an empty establishment showered in neon pink lighting.

There’s a quote that says, ‘we all need a laugh right now,’ but another favorite is the words ‘I’m enough’ at the top of the canvas. I’m enough. I don’t know what that means. It doesn’t often cross my mind. It sounds so foreign to me. Tonight, I murmur it a few times, then some more, like a mantra, a prayer I’ve already memorized. My chest, my memories, my worries feel lighter. I say it again a couple more times, then I look at the words in the middle before looking back up: I’ll be fierce, not silent. I’m enough.